with me up the country. My d----d overseer has got away, and I must
follow him at once.'

'I'll go with pleasure,' I replied. 'Which way do you think Moye has
gone?'

'The shortest cut to the railroad, probably; but old Cæsar will track
him.'

A servant then announced breakfast--an early one having been prepared.
We hurried through the meal with all speed, and the other preparations
being soon over, were in twenty minutes in our saddles, and ready for
the journey. The mulatto coachman, with a third horse, was at the door,
ready to accompany us, and as we mounted, the Colonel said to him:

'Go and call Sam, the driver.'

The darky soon returned with the heavy, ugly-visaged black who had been
whipped, by Madam P----'s order, the day before.

'Sam,' said his master, 'I shall be gone some days, and I leave the
field-work in your hands. Let me have a good account of you when I
return.'

'Yas, massa, you shill dat,' replied the negro.

'Put Jule--Sam's Jule--into the field, and see that she does full
tasks,' continued the Colonel.

'Hain't she wanted 'mong de nusses, massa?'